Rap De Rap Show

De La was the first group I was ever given the A&R responsibility for…whatever that means. Back then, it meant being the groups cheer leader / road manager / dude in the office they hung with. It mostly meant we made it up as we went along. But that’s how it was back then; we were basically writing the rulebook as we stumbled along. I worked at Tommy Boy Records in a converted mailroom where my office consisted off a desk, a boombox for my listening duties, some old mailbags, and a few crates of records. This was low-tech at its finest, and was the nerve center for my entry into the so-called rap game. I’m still regretting it to this day. Tommy Boy was a crazy place to work, but I will say this: I loved working there. I was young, not so business savvy, and really juiced on rap music. This was the perfect gig for a schmuck like me. I was also blessed with an amazing mentor in Monica Lynch, one of the sharpest people I have ever worked with.

I was basically the luckiest guy ever. I was working with De La, Stetsasonic, and Latifah, and getting paid for it. The first De La single connected right away and I had the luck of being the kid who handed the record to Red Alert—the DJ who broke the record and the eventual “Uncle” of the soon-to-be-formed Native Tongues. “Plug Tunin’” was a bona fide underground hit. Red Alert ran with it from day one, and other DJs followed suit quickly. In the span of a few weeks, the so-called “Others from the Brother Planet” (I gave them that funny but corny name. They gave me “Scrub.” I think they won.) had a nice little buzz going. The people wanted to see them live at this point. There was one problem, however; they had never done a show before. I mean like...never.

It was cool though. They had Prince Paul in the wings and he had done a ton of shows with Stet and was a great mentor for the dudes. Speaking of Stet AKA Stetsasonic, their second record, In Full Gear, had just dropped and Tommy Boy convinced / appeased them to do a performance / record release at a seminal Downtown party called Payday, which happened to be located at Irving Plaza—the legendary concert space that still remains relevant to this day. To say Tommy Boy’s relationship was tense with Stetsasonic and its dynamic leader Daddy-O would be an understatement, and this night would turn out to be a microcosm of rapper / label relations.

OK, so we throw the De La boys into a rehearsal studio called Rocket somewhere in the West 30s. The boys brought their little crew, which consisted of dancers China & Jette, and their homie nicknamed Gran-E. The dudes had a crazy idea; they had the girls / dancers hold up cue cards with the lyrics on them while the boys performed in syncopation with the cue cards, which were hand done by Plug 2 AKA Trugoy the Dove AKA Dave. It was cool, pretty funny, and original, just like the music, and I thought it had a chance to make people take notice. Fast-forward two rehearsal sessions and a day-off later, and it’s show night. Stet, meanwhile, is basically having major behind-the-scenes issues with the label, and have a big beef with the sound at soundcheck the afternoon of the gig. It was a freaky thing. I was 21 years old and I saw the headliner—whose event it was—tell my boss Monica Lynch that they weren’t going to perform and that the label sucked and the sound was wack and…it went on and on. And for the first time in my music career, I had no idea how we were gonna pull the night off without the headliner. I tried to soft-pedal this to De La when they showed up a bit later, but the tension in the room was evident. I was shook at the prospects of what was to be that fateful evening.

I can’t remember what happened…if De La did an actual sound check. I think they did, but the memory banks are a little fuzzy on that one. If I recall correctly, we went and got some pizza, killed some time, and came back to the venue a bit later for the gig. I was still freaked from watching Daddy-O go off on Monica Lynch, the sound man, the Tommy Boy staff, and anyone else who was in earshot of him. He also—much to my dismay—had stormed out, vowing not to perform that evening. I was pretty sure they weren’t going to come back. All I knew was I had to get De La on the stage and hopefully the rest would take care of itself. I laugh at how naïve I was then, looking back now. When we returned from getting a few slices, Pos, Dave, Maseo, China, Jette, Gran-E, and myself posted up adjacent to the stage in a dumb-small dressing room tucked off to the side, and me thinking, Damn, I had seen the heavy metal band Motörhead here just a few years ago. I guess shit done changed for me, right? OK, back to De La…. It was getting late, Stet seemingly wasn’t coming back, and the natives were getting restless. It was hot and sweaty and there were some heavy industry people like Russell Simmons, Lyor Cohen, Corey Robbins, and Fab Five Freddy in the house. It was looking serious, and I was getting nervous.

It’s about 12:45…1:00 now and I’ve done a few crowd checks and walked around and soaked up the vibe in the club. See, I grew up Downtown, a stone’s throw from the venue, and a bunch of my cronies were in the spot, and you know how that is; nobody is ready to brick you like your friends. So I was extra tense. After conferring with Monica Lynch and the Tommy Boy staff, it was time for Pos, Dave, and Mase to rock. As the boys went out on stage with their dancers in place, their homie Gran-E introduced them and they broke into a routine based on “Freedom of Speech,” the B-side of their first single. They did a half-song version of the joint and then went right into “Plug Tunin’.” As the girls started pulling out their lyric-laden cue cards in syncopation with Pos and Dave killing it—perfectly in sync—the crowd started losing its collective mind. By the start of the second verse, the house was rapping along with the cue cards, more or less, and I knew right then and there that these guys had something really special. Even my boys couldn’t hate that night. It was, as they say, “the sweet smell of victory!”

The fellas received a serious, serious ovation that epic night, and the cool industry people all hovered around the De Las post show. I had always half-remembered that we almost talked the boys into going back on and performing again around 2:30 AM. Recently, Pos related this gem to me: “D.M.C. told me we should go on again,” and when Pos replied, “We don’t have any other songs,” D.M.C. told him he should go back on and do the same set. I think this was the root of that memory of trying to get them to perform again that fated night. Most of all, I had always remembered how hard they rocked it and how proud I was of them. I also remembered that Stetsasonic did a total no-show. I distinctly remember around two o’clock—a whole hour after De La rocked the sound man and the stage­—staff started sweating me about the next performance, AKA Stetsasonic. I knew the dudes weren’t coming back, but Monica wanted to stall some more, causing me to catch heat. I remember throughout the night spending about five bucks in change calling Daddy-O on his SkyPager. It was the first time I ever got stood up like that by a rapper, something you get used to as an A&R person, especially if you ever worked with Grand Puba or Rakim. Me and my surly ass had the pleasure of working with them both. I’ll save those tales for my book.

OK, De La killed their first show, which is funny, because during their early tours post the success of 3 Feet High and Rising, they actually were kind of suspect live, something they admit freely and something they worked hard to overcome. It’s ironic because they have one of the best live shows in all of hip-hop these days and tour and perform constantly. As Pos told me, “We got better ’cause we had to. We were watching the best: N.W.A., Slick Rick, Run-D.M.C., and Big Daddy Kane. We heard the talking and we had to suck it up and get our show right, so we did. We didn’t really have a choice, to be honest.”

I caught up with the guys recently in LA as they practiced with a live band called Rhythm Roots Allstars. The fellas were about to embark on an Australian tour for almost a month with the band and seemed excited about the prospects. Mase and Pos, between jokes, also told me about the exacting formation of the Native Tongues; a story I had never heard before. Listen up, kiddies. This is the first time this story has ever been told.

Pos: We went to Afrika [Baby Bam]’s house in Brooklyn one day. Tip and Afrika had already thought it out.
Mase: It was like some Parliament-Funkadelic shit.
Pos: Word. Afrika was like, “We all spit the same tongue, so let’s be the Native Tongues.”

“The rest,” as they say, party people, “is history!”

See, it was that simple and that powerful, just like De La Soul themselves. Twenty-one years later and I’m proud to still call the guys “friends.” Sometimes life is good like that. This is one of those for instances.

Thanks De La for helping me make my bones in the music game. You guys are still the most talented group I ever worked with in my whole career, and I’m glad we still can connect like we did all those years ago as kids. It’s a beautiful thing.

Dante Ross, NYC.